Creative Space as a Catalyst for Community Wealth Building

What happens to a creative city when the people shaping its cultural life can’t find affordable, long-term space to stay, work and create? 

Join Community Innovation Practitioner Eilish Victoria from the University of Dundee as she asks how community wealth building could help Dundee’s creative community access the spaces they need to thrive. 

Working with Creative Dundee, Eilish brings together artists, creative organisations, researchers, city partners and the private sector. Together, they’re building relationships and looking at how creative space can support community wealth building and Dundee’s long-term future. 

Hear why a lack of space can push creative talent out of the city, limit collaboration and leave grassroots organisations facing an uncertain future. And discover how keeping more opportunity, investment and decision making rooted locally could help change that. 

Eilish shares what the research has revealed about the value creative spaces bring to a city and why lasting change needs collaboration across sectors. With Scotland’s new community wealth building legislation creating new possibilities, could Dundee lead the way in using creative space to support regeneration, local economies and thriving communities? 

Chapters 

[00:00] – Welcome to Creative Communities  
[02:14] – Dundee’s creative identity and its space problem 
[04:41] – Why affordable, long-term creative space matters 
[08:37] – Who owns and controls the spaces creatives need? 
[13:04] – Bringing creatives, property and public bodies into the same room 
[16:00] – The opportunities and risks of temporary creative space 
[20:00] – Community wealth building and a new opportunity for Dundee 
[25:00] – Giving the creative sector a place at the table 
[30:00] – Building a creative space ecosystem through collaboration 

Useful links & further reading 

About Eilish Victoria’s Creative Communities research, including case study and policy paper – here

Explore the AHRC Creative Communities Programme – here

Special thanks & credits 

Special thanks to the creative practitioners, organisations and partners across Dundee who contributed to the research and this episode. 

About the series 

The Creative Communities Podcast shares stories from across the UK exploring how devolution, culture and creativity can unlock inclusive innovation and place-based growth. 

Across Series 2, you’ll hear how communities, researchers and cross-sector partners are working together to co-create culture and innovation across the UK’s devolved nations and regions. 

Credits 

Creative Communities is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK (Grant Agreement No AH/X001555/1 and hosted by Northumbria University. 

With podcast production and training from MIC media.